1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to home video server systems, and more particularly to managing video streams provided by home video server systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Televisions are ubiquitous and, in recent years, home video servers that operate in conjunction with televisions have been developed. A typical home video server can provide a variety of media content from various sources to be displayed at one or more televisions.
It is known that the media content can be delivered to a user's television via predefined paths or streams. The paths or streams used to deliver the media content can be built using various protocols (e.g., software modules or “stacks”) that are based upon the type of content and the physical transport resources. Switching between the various video sources comprising the media content must be as fast and efficient as possible. However, switching between the video sources can be difficult due to the formats for the video sources, such as analog video, MPEG2 transport stream, MPEG2 program stream, MPEG-4, JVT, and others. Moreover, these video sources can require different resources from the home media server such as a digital encoder for analog video. Formats already in digital format may not require an encoder, but may require a format conversion depending on the requirements of the home media server and its connection to client display devices, such as televisions.
Current practice requires the entire video content stream (protocols, software modules, and/or the “stacks”) to be torn down and rebuilt whenever source selection changes. This method was originally used for Internet streaming such as QuickTime and Real Networks. Later, this method was adopted and followed during the development of home media server products such as the NEC AX10, Pioneer DL-000, TiVo and Replay TV by SonicBlue.
Unfortunately, setting up the transport portion for such a connection can require a substantial set of information exchanges between the end user device and the server and as such, it can require an inordinate amount of time to establish the connection.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for preserving the transport portion of the client streaming connection as well as other system resources across stream source selections. The present invention satisfies that need, as well as others, and overcomes deficiencies of prior approaches.